


The Minor Fall, the Major Lift

by anonymousAlchemist



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, but its basically gen, i guess you could read this as v v slight magnus/taako, im so close to catching up and im dying, takes place probably between the eleventh hour and the suffering game, yes the title was cliche
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-24
Updated: 2017-03-24
Packaged: 2018-10-10 05:08:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10429815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonymousAlchemist/pseuds/anonymousAlchemist
Summary: Alternate title: When you live with people you really care about and none of you guys talk about your feelings and also found family is really nice.Alternate alternate title: Eating dinner at 4:00 AM in the morning, like a bunch of dumb college students.Taako does some showmanship. Magnus shares his feelings. Merle wakes up.





	

**Author's Note:**

> god, this podcast is eating my life. takes place post eleventh hour, pre suffering game.

  
Here’s the dirty secret about adventurers. You don’t go chasing danger if you’ve got anything to lose. If you’ve got a spouse and two kids and a warm dinner waiting for you when you return home from your 9-to-5, then three-hundred pieces of gold and the promise of hypothetical death is not all that enticing.

Adventuring doesn’t come with life insurance because the mortality rates are too high.

You think about this a lot, actually. You’ve been thinking about Julia a lot lately, too. It’ll be four in the morning and you’ll be sleeping and sometimes your dreams turn to Ravens Roost crumbling and everything falling and there is Julia dying and dying and you can’t run fast enough to save her and the world is slow and molasses, it’s a cliche nightmare and it’s been six years but every time you wake up with your throat hoarse from shouting.

You rub your eyes and get up. There’s no point trying to sleep, now. Maybe you’ll get a glass of water with honey or something. Tea, maybe? Your throat hurts.

You carefully open your door, not wanting to make too much noise. It creaks anyway.

Taako’s in the common area, his back to you, facing the stove. You watch him for a bit, distracted from your mission. He’s deftly doing something to a whole bunch of ingredients. Every once in a while there’s a flash of light. He eventually turns his face to you.

“The fuck are you looking at, kemosabe? Don’t just keep standing there like a chump.”

You edge your way around the room, avoiding the porthole that shows Neverwinter in the dead of night. Little firefly pinpricks of light tell you who’s still awake in the city. You thought you had put a rug over that. It’s pretty, even if it is a little terrifying.

“Why’re you up?” you ask. You reach over him to get a cup of water from the sink. He leans away from you to keep doing...things, to the food.

“Elf skills. Taako doesn’t need to sleep.”  
“Oh, right,” you say, even though you can see dark circles under his eyes. You used to share a bedroom: you know that he usually spends a couple hours “meditating, or whatever.” He looks away from you and back at the cutting board. He waves his finger and a knife begins to peel garlic neatly. Perfect ivory teardrops fall into a bowl.

“How about you, hombre? Don’t humans need to sleep, or whatever? Your voice sounds like absolute garbage, by the way.”  
“Bad dreams,” you say.  
“Oh. Well that sucks for you,” he says.  
“Yeah.” You open the cupboard to hunt for some honey and maybe a teabag. Hopefully you have both things. It’s sort of uncertain, really. Tres horny boys: not the most conscientious at grocery shopping.

As you search, you watch Taako out of the corner of your eye. He’s skinny like his magic has eaten him up and lovely like all elves are lovely. He’s moving with a crisp precision, a sort of professional flourish he never has when you’re in a fight. Like this, you really could believe that he had a TV show.

“What are you making?” you ask.  
“Thirty clove chicken, my dude,” Taako says.  
“That’s a lot of cloves,”  
“No man, it’s like, a slow cook. It’s really good. Trust me.” He turns back to you. “Hey, you wanna see something cool?”.  
“Sure,” you say, and honey and teabag in hand, you sit down at the kitchen table.

He turns around with everything he’s cut up and mixed in a shallow dish. Chicken, garlic, oil, vegetables, and some other stuff you can’t really identify. He presents it to an imaginary crowd, and in a showman’s voice, says, “In my hands, I have all the ingredients for thirty clove chicken, and this would take, like, forever, but with a little magic —”

He throws everything up in the air and claps his hands. In a flash of light, the raw ingredients are transmuted into a perfectly cooked dish which he catches one-handed and sets on the table smoothly. “— it’s done in a flash!I“

You applaud, your tea forgotten. He grins. “High dexterity, baby. I used to pull this trick and the crowds would just eat it up.”  
“That’s a neat trick,” you say, and reach over tear off a piece of chicken like an animal.

He grabs your hand before you can touch it.

“Fuck, wait, hold up.” He pulls out his saltshaker and sprinkles it on the chicken. Nothing happens. He bites his lip. “Okay, go ahead, try it.”

You tear off a piece and pop it in your mouth. He pretends not to watch you eat, but his eyes track your lips, and not in the sexy way. The chicken is fantastic. Taako was right, the amount of garlic is perfect. It tastes like he spent literal hours making it.

“Wow,” you say. “This is great.”  
He looks smug, and tosses his hair back a bit. “I know.” He passes you a plate, cuts himself a piece and sits next to you at the table. He takes a bite.  
“Fuck yeah, ‘cha boy’s still got it,” he mumbles while chewing.

For a few minutes, the two of you just eat quietly. It’s nice. Taako snaps his fingers and your tea makes itself. You nod at him in thanks, and he shrugs. You take a sip. It’s perfect.

The sound of a door opening breaks the silence. The both of you turn to see Merle, who is yawning and absently braiding his beard into some semblance of order as he walks out of his bedroom. Merle’s hair is a mess when it’s not in braids.

“What are you two doing up?” he asks, not unkindly. “I thought I heard someone clapping.”

“Sorry,” you say sheepishly. “That was me.”  
“Eh,” Merle says. “Oh hey, food!”  
“Sizzle it up with Taako, midnight showing,” Taako says after he swallows. “Definitely not poisoned.” He motions for Merle to take some. “I’m going to leave the moonbase in the morning and go get my TV show back, this is just a preview of it before you say goodbye forever to Taako.”  
“Cool,” Merle says, and cuts himself a piece. “Say, this is really good.”  
Taako pretends not to smile.

You rub your fingers over your wedding ring, staring at the thin gold band that rests warm on your finger. Julia would like them, you think. Julia would call you all stupid dorks and tell you to bring them over for dinner. She’d worry about your adventures and say you have a hero complex and tell you that she’s glad that you have your friends to keep you safe.

You look up. “I’m really glad I met you guys,” you say.

Taako pulls a face.

“Mango. My dude. My boy. Never say that again.”  
“Yeah, Magnus. Maybe lets not bring feelings into this nice surprise predawn dinner we’re having,” Merle chimes in, jokingly. “It’s way too early for emotions.”

You laugh. “Alright, alright.”

You think about Ravens Roost, about the high peaks and winding corridors and your house and workshop. You think about the moonbase, about the apartment you share with your two best friends and sparring with Cary and all the people in Refuge who you helped. You wonders if it outweighs Fandolin, Goldcliff, and all the people who maybe kind of died because of you. You think about the relics. Five down. You wonder what you’re going to do after you’re done. If you’re still here.

You watch the sun rise over Neverwinter from the porthole in the floor, lighting you and your friends in gold.

**Author's Note:**

> so its REALLY HARD to write tres horny boys in something serious and feelingsy without it becoming saccharin/angst and it can’t become saccharine/angst because thb are just like, shitty dork people, so here is my BEST ATTEMPT at some slice of life post eleventh hour when nobody is talking about their feelings but, you know. they kind of are because i need some emotional resolution. God, I love these asshole boys. 
> 
> bonus content that got cut: 
> 
> Taako: “It’s not a diary, Oh my god, it’s a record of my life’s work and when I’m dead I’m going to publish it as “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Elves and it's going to be a bestseller.  
> Magnus: “You just called it a “record of your life’s work,” and you write in it every night. It’s a diary.”
> 
>  
> 
> hmu at anonymousalchemist.tumblr.com or anonymousalchemistart.tumblr.com for more Cool and New Content, and slip me a kudos or comment on the way out if you feel like you want to do that. that'd be cool.


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